New York SBDC Research Network

From MoneyWatch : Conventional wisdom suggests that as we spend more time on the Internet, we also spend less time on face-to-face interaction and other traditional kinds of socializing. But a new paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that these online hours come less at the expense of family and friends than they do from another source: people's jobs. The study, by Scott Wallsten of the Technology Policy Institute, a research organization that focuses on innovation, found that Internet users carve 27 percent of the time they spend online out of productive work hours. By comparison, people spend 15 percent of their time on the web instead of watching television, while 12 percent comes from sleep.

There are many options for keeping in touch with each other, with clients, to gain inspiration or keep abreast of the world around us. And we know that each of us has our own way of absorbing information. Sometimes things just click. I'm not a collector.  The only thing I collect is books but I find that in a virtual world, all the postcards I've ever bought in a museum gift shop, every article I clipped and saved, every tidbit or fact that entertained me I can re-manifest on Pinterest . Whether it's Twitter or Facebook etc.., we can choose how we use these new vehicles and you can see that in practice: collections of recipes, or mustangs, expensive watches, dogs or political outrage. But for visual learners, Pinterest can be a very useful medium. To that end, I've begun a new collection of boards aimed at both advisors and clients or anyone interested in the issues facing small business owners. We still have a profile for NYS SBDC , but this profile is from the poin...

WASHINGTON – The U.S Small Business Administration (SBA) announced its third highest year of SBA lending to date, surpassed only by SBA’s two record years of supporting more than $30 billion in FY 2011 and 2012. In FY 2013, SBA supported more than $29 billion in lending to America’s small businesses, giving small businesses critical access to the capital they need to start and grow their business. “Under President Obama, SBA lending has reached record levels and we continue to get more capital into the hands of small business owners than ever before,” said Acting SBA Administrator Jeanne Hulit. “Small businesses are the engine of our economy, and reaching our third highest year of SBA lending in FY 2013 demonstrates the strength and resiliency of America’s 28 million small businesses as they continue to recover from the Great Recession and drive our economy forward.” One of SBA’s primary missions is to ensure that small business owners have access to the capital they need to sta...

WASHINGTON – Small businesses can help keep their business information safe and protect their online information with a new free course from the U.S. Small Business Administration. SBA is launching this new course, designed for small businesses, to provide an overview on how to secure business information, identify security threats and guard against cyber-attacks. Cybersecurity for Small Businesses is one of SBA’s newest online courses to help business owners safeguard their information from computer attacks and determine their readiness against security breaches. The course, available at www.sba.gov/tools/sba-learning-center/training/cybersecurity-small-businesses , teaches best cybersecurity practices and protection against cyber threats for the nation’s small business community. The protection of sensitive data such as business invoices, payroll records, client and employee data and other proprietary information is essential to a company’s success. A computer failure or other...

How can you recognize that your project is headed for disaster? Look for these warning signs. Not every project we work on is our crowning achievement. Only a few projects make us rush to our LinkedIn profiles to record how much wonderfulness we accomplished in how little time, with a budget this tiny. Into every project manager’s life a few clunkers must fall. Some failures are preventable; others are out of our hands. But all of us like to imagine we can avoid the worst of the catastrophes… or at least escape with our reputations intact. How can you tell that your project is aimed directly at #headdesk territory? Take heed of these warning signs. If you identify the uh-oh moments soon enough, perhaps you can take remedial action and save the situation. Maybe you can walk away, take a deep breath, reanalyze the requirements, and reset the team. We’d like to think so! See more at Quickbase .

From ReidHoffman.org At Greylock, my partners and I are driven by one guiding mission: always help entrepreneurs. It doesn’t matter whether an entrepreneur is in our portfolio, whether we’re considering an investment, or whether we’re casually meeting for the first time. Entrepreneurs often ask me for help with their pitch decks. Because we value integrity and confidentiality at Greylock, we never share an entrepreneur’s pitch deck with others. What I’ve honorably been able to do, however, is share the deck I used to pitch LinkedIn to Greylock for a Series B investment back in 2004. This past May was the 10th anniversary of LinkedIn, and while reflecting on my entrepreneurial journey, I realized that no one gets to see the presentation decks for successful companies. This gave me an idea: I could help many more entrepreneurs by making the deck available not just to the Greylock network of entrepreneurs, but to everyone. Today, I share the Series B deck with you, too. It has man...

From the Small Business Administration : If you’re a small business owner interested in making the federal government one of your next customers, you can benefit greatly from certifying your business first. Many government agencies require that a certain percentage of its work is set aside for small businesses (and woman-owned, veteran-owned and more), so certifying your business can help you successfully compete for government contracts. These resources can help: When and How to Register Your Business as a “Small Business” – Get the scoop on small business certification from this blog post, concerning D-U-N-S number and the System for Award Management (SAM) Am I a Small Business? – Make sure you meet the qualifications for "small" before you certify and register your business. Register for Government Contracting – As you register for government contracting, you'll also be "self-certifying" your business as small. You can also read up...